The Spiritual
Searching of Jewish Artists

Dear
Friends,

The
spiritual searching of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in
North America was accompanied by a new appreciation of
ethnic diversity. These developments, combined with the
events of the Six-Day War, awakened among many young
American Jews a desire to explore their Jewish roots. Among
them were artists in the performing, visual, and literary
arts who sought to express their exploration of their Jewish
roots through their art. Some of these artists approached
the American Jewish Congress for support and advice. There
was a special need for a creative community which they could
meet other Jewish artists; moreover, they needed ways of
bringing their artistic achievements to the attention of the
public.

In
response, the American Jewish Congress, through the efforts
of the late Martin Steinberg and his wife, Lillian,
established in 1976 the Martin Steinberg Center to serve as
a center for young Jewish artists. I was hired to be the
program director of the Center under the guidance of Julius
Schatz, who was the director of AJCongress’s commission on
Jewish culture, and I later became the director of the
Center. (In the States, I ws known by my English name, Jeff
Oboler.)

The Center
began to attract Jewish artists of all ages, as well as
spiritually-searching Jews who were interested in the arts.
The Center organized workshops in various artistic
disciplines which gave artists within each discipline the
opportunity to exchange ideas and receive valuable feedback
on their work, while developing new friendships and
professional contacts. Through these workshops, the artists
also had the opportunity to organize events for the public
which would feature their work, such as exhibits, concerts,
and poetry readings. There were also programs at the Center
which enabled participants to study and experience the
Jewish spiritual tradition. For example, there were talks on
how the Torah views artistic expression, gatherings on Rosh
Chodesh – the New Month – when guest teachers spoke about
various aspects of Judaism, and a few Shabbos retreats which
enabled participants to experience the serenity, joy, and
shalom of the sacred Seventh Day.

Many of the
artists at the Center had an interest in the way Jewish
communities preserved and expressed their unique culture
during the long exile in the Diaspora. For example, there
were musicians who were rediscovering Yiddish folk songs, as
well as klezmer music, the instrumental music of Eastern
European Jews, and there were musicians who were
rediscovering the Ladino songs of Sephardic Jews. As a
result of these activities, the Center had an important role
in the revival of klezmer and Sephardic music during the
years of the Center’s existence (1976-1985).

The
interest of these artists in the spiritual and cultural life
of Jews in the Diaspora was not in harmony with the goals of
most of the Zionist establishment. As we explained, the
World Zionist Organization became dominated by leaders who
desired to have nationalism replace the Torah as the raison
d’etre of our people, and they felt that the highest
expression of this nationalism was to live in the Land of
Zion and speak Hebrew. For most of these Zionist leaders,
the centuries of exile had no purpose or meaning, and one of
these leaders was David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister
of the State of Israel, who said, “The distant past is
closer to us than the recent past of the last two thousand
years” (The Zionist Idea - Introduction). As the historian,
Lucy Dawidowicz, writes:

“The
philosophical concept of the negation of the exile became
among many Zionists a negation of Jewish creativity in the
Diaspora.” (Cited in “The World of Our Fathers” by Irving
Howe)

As a
result, most Zionist schools did not teach about the great
spiritual and cultural accomplishments of the Jewish people
in the lands of their dispersion. After I moved to
Jerusalem, I was reminded of this negative attitude towards
Jewish culture in the Diaspora when I read an interview with
Shulamit Aloni, just after Prime Minister Rabin appointed
her to be the Education Minister of the State of Israel. In
this interview, she expressed her unhappiness that a growing
number of young Jews in Israel had become interested in the
Chassidic and Yiddish music of the “shtetl” – a Yiddish term
for the Jewish towns and villages of Eastern Europe. To her
great dismay, she was now hearing some Chassidic and Yiddish
songs on Israeli radio, and she complained, “I feel like
we're back in the shtetl.”

The
majority of the artists at the Martin Steinberg Center were
the children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren of
Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and
they therefore had a special interest in the revival of
Yiddish folk songs and klezmer music. I myself am a
grandchild of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, and I therefore
had a personal interest in this revival. I had much pleasure
from working with the artists in this area, as I discovered
that the Yiddish language and music expressed some of the
warm and soulful qualities that I associated with being
Jewish.

It was my
understanding, however, that language and the arts are not
the essence of our people’s soul; they are rather the
“garments” of this collective soul. They are the outer
expressions of our people’s soul, but they are not the soul
itself. I therefore sought to help spiritually-searching
Jewish artists to rediscover the inner soul of our people.

My
spiritual perspective was expressed in a letter that I wrote
to a friend who was a klezmer musician. With the
encouragement of my colleague, Chava Miller – the Center’s
associate director – the following excerpt from this letter
was published in our Jewish Arts Newsletter:

………………………………………….

The
importance of klezmer music as an instrument – one among
many – of Jewish rebirth is often not fully understood.
There is a great outpouring of interest in this form of
music, as evident by the large crowds attending all klezmer
concerts. We need to ask ourselves the question: Why? Is it
simply nostalgia or a return to roots, or is there inherent
in klezmer music certain strengths of our people which are
now emerging from hiding?

As you know
so well, klezmer music grew out of a culture where Jews
prayed to God and studied the Torah – always chanting –
using the song of the chant to reveal the deeper meanings of
the words of prayer and study. According to most scholars,
the biblical cantillations of our people may be the oldest
form of our musical culture, and one can certainly hear the
sounds of prayer in aspects of klezmer music – the yearning,
the searching, the sometimes mystical blues sound. For a
generation of Jews who have lost the technical skills of
Jewish prayer, klezmer music evokes in many the ancient
yearning for our Source, and expresses the ultimate
longing for our redemption from all exiles.

And
although the klezmer musicians borrowed from the melodies of
the surrounding cultures, they infused these melodies with
the sounds and soul of our people. In this way, they created
music which was both “new” and “Jewish.” At a time when so
many people in the West are spiritually searching, this
deeper side of klezmer music needs to brought to the
community, as well as discussed by the musicians themselves.

………………………………………….

There were
other artists at the Center who shared my perspective, and I
found some kindred spirits among the members of a cultural
group called Yugentruf – a network of young people
who were dedicated to the revival of Yiddish. Unlike many of
the Yiddishists of a hundred years ago, the members of this
group recognized and appreciated the spiritual roots of
Yiddish culture; moreover, they were aware that if Yiddish
culture was to have a future, it needed to reconnect to
these roots. It is therefore not surprising that a number of
the most active members of Yugentruf began to become
Torah-observant.

Another
example of a kindred spirit is Andy Statman, one of his
generation’s premier mandolinists and clarinetists, who
began a spiritual journey which led him to become a
Torah-observant Jew, step-by-step. I first met Andy when he
performed at the Martin Steinberg Center with the noted
fiddler, Alan Kaufman. At an early stage of his musical
career, Andy was attracted to all things ethnic —Balkan,
Native American, Japanese, Latin and African root music, and
at one point even recorded with the likes of Jerry Garcia.
At some point, he had a spiritual awakening which led him to
explore the klezmer and Chassidic music of his roots, and
through this process, he discovered Torah – the inner “soul”
of this music.

The journey
of Andy Statman and other Jewish artists back to their
spiritual roots can help us to understand the fears of
Shulamit Aloni, when she noticed that a growing number of
young Israeli Jews were rediscovering Yiddish and Chassidic
music. Aloni is a “devout” secularist, and she once publicly
criticized Prime Minister Rabin for wearing a yarmulke and
for saying the Shema – the traditional proclamation
of the Divine Oneness – when he visited Auschwitz. It is
therefore likely that this astute educator realized that the
rediscovery of this music could also lead to the rediscovery
of the spiritual tradition which serves as the inner spirit
of this music. In her view, this would be a serious blow to
the secular Zionist ideology to which she devoted her life.
As someone who worked closely with spiritually-searching
Jewish artists, I acknowledge that if this was her real
fear, then it was totally justified.

The future
is not on the side of Jewish secularists, as the God of
history proclaimed:

“And as for Me, this is My covenant with them,” said
Hashem; “My spirit which rests upon you and My words which I
have placed in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth
nor from the mouths of your children nor from the mouths of
your children’s children,” said Hashem,” from now on to all
eternity.” (Isaiah 59:21)